Subject: Re: sensory consonance /dissonance' musical consonance / d issonance From: Martin Braun <nombraun@xxxxxxxx> Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 14:38:26 +0200 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Dear Kevin and others, to learn something is not the biological purpose of a human brain. It's purpose is to keep up a workable equilibrium. If acoustical signals, such as music by Webern, can be of use for a brain depends on numerous things. Neither in music nor in psychoacoustics can there be something like absolute consonance or absolute dissonance. It's always relative to something else. The idea that consonance can be learned, and that dissonance can be unlearned, has been a popular one in some circles for quite some time. In my view this idea is just one of the many "false beginnings" that have cropped up during the course of human culture. Martin --------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin Braun Neuroscience of Music S-671 95 Klässbol Sweden web site: http://w1.570.telia.com/~u57011259/index.htm